USD EYES YEAR’S ‘BIGGEST GAME’ AT SANTA CLARA

First-round bye in WCC Tournament on line as competition for fourth place intensifies

Toreros at Santa Clara

Today: 7 p.m. at the Leavey Center

On the air: WCC Digital TV; 1090-AM

Records: USD is 13-13, 6-5; Santa Clara is 17-8, 5-5.

Series: Santa Clara leads 40-33.

Toreros outlook: Pace will go a long way in determining tonight’s winner. Santa Clara, with four players scoring in double figures, pushes the ball up the floor. The Broncos score 76.2 points a game, 27th out of 345 Division I teams. USD isn’t averse to running, but must be disciplined and not rush shots if the Toreros don’t have numbers on the fast break. Point guard Christopher Anderson has struggled from the free-throw line the last seven games, 23 of 39 (59 percent).

You don’t have to be a Joe Lunardi bracketologist, an RPI savant or a James Naismith historian to understand the importance of tonight’s USD at Santa Clara men’s basketball game.

The Toreros are 6-5 in WCC play, good for fourth place. The Broncos are 5-5. The winner of tonight’s game will not lock down fourth place but draws the favorable inside lane with the loser sucking exhaust fumes.

Said USD point guard Christopher Anderson, “I think it’s the biggest game of the year.”

Did we mention that the teams finishing third and fourth in the WCC regular season draw a first-round bye in the conference tournament (the first- and second-place teams, Gonzaga and Saints Mary’s, barring monumental upsets, earn byes into the semifinals)?

Earn the first-round bye and your opening tournament game is against a team that played the night before, a team probably with tired legs.

One other storyline to tonight’s Toreros-Broncos showdown: Santa Clara embarrassed USD at the Jenny Craig Pavilion 20 days ago, 64-50. The final score is misleading. Santa Clara led 57-34 with 4:47 to play.

Magnifying the game’s importance for the Toreros: a Santa Clara victory earns the Broncos a regular-season sweep in the series and the conference-tournament tiebreaker advantage.

Noting the need to win, USD coach Bill Grier said, “I only see one option.” He paused before adding, “I’m sure they feel the exact same way.”

Grier said three factors contributed to Santa Clara’s rout at the Jenny Craig Pavilion.

“First of all,” said Grier, “I think they’re real good.”

Santa Clara is 17-8 overall compared to USD’s 13-13.

“I think the second half was kind of like the second half the other night (against Saint Mary’s),” Grier said. “We were fatigued.”

USD played a Thursday night game at Saint Mary’s on Jan. 26, caught a flight home the next morning, walked through a one-hour practice Friday, then got blown out Saturday afternoon.

Santa Clara had played on Wednesday and arrived in San Diego before the Toreros.

“That’s just a competitive advantage,” Grier said.

This time, Santa Clara hasn’t played for a week and the Broncos figure to show up in a foul mood. Their previous two games: a 17-point loss at BYU and a 21-point blowout defeat at home against Saint Mary’s.

As for the third factor in Santa Clara’s rout at USD?

“I just thought they were more aggressive in the second half,” Grier said. “The second half they did a real good job defending us. We had a lot of one-pass shot possessions that went empty and they got on a little run. We contributed to that. We didn’t display much patience.”

“We can’t just run one guy at him,” Anderson said. “Guys are going to have to bluff at him, shake and get the ball out of his hands. I think we’ll do a lot better job this game.”

Added Grier, “Trasolini hurt us, but I also thought some stuff he got was from lack of effort on our part.”

Effort has not been an issue of late. Playing what he called a “daunting” stretch, four games in eight days that includes three against No. 5 Gonzaga, BYU and Saint Mary’s, Grier lauded his players’ tenacity in the 2-2 run.

“We stepped it up a notch,” he said. “We rebounded the ball better. I think we were playing more physical than we did the first time (against Santa Clara), and we have to against them.”